Are you saying you run it currently? I haven't seen anyone mention APD as a skill they use on escort builds I've seen. (happy to be proven wrong though)
As far as I know it's a dud ability already as no escorts run it currently (in favor of APB/O) and it requires high tac slots which cruisers don't have but would and could make the most use out of it. Which is why I suggested APD1 should be moved down to an ensign skill pulling the other levels down as well so APD3 is LTC skill.

Not for my escorts, but for cruisers and sci ships in PvP. That was the point of my question, why would added threat convince me as an escort pilot to use it in PvE. Personally I think your proposal of moving Attack Patterns down to ensign is the best thing Cryptic could do with them. This would probably even end the old argument about the useless third tac slot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eradicator84

The only benefit I can see for escorts is the hull resist buff, but for it to work they need to be taking fire (already have aggro) and for the debuff to work their target also has to be firing on them. So it requires having aggro and taking hits from your target(s) to actually start working to its full potential. Something regular escorts probably don't want to be doing. So why not add threat to make it work better? That's why APB is the best for them offence wise (enemy doesn't need to fire on you), or for a balance APO for damage and resist buffs.

APD to me seems a very cruiser/tanky type ability, where one is dishing out (probably AoE) dmg, attracting aggro and taking a pounding.

Since APDelta is the only Pattern that can be used on others, yes for me it is more of a support ability. As it is basically only used by cruisers and sci ships ussultimatums proposal is actually a good 1. It could even save people points in threat and make it easier for regular cruiser captains to use escorts sometimes. But it would definitly not convince me to use it on escorts, it would probably even lead to me not even considering it an option anymore. Basically it wouldn't change that it is ideal for cruisers and your own fault for taking it as escort pilot.

Quote:

Originally Posted by eradicator84

To me, for a skill that requires aggro to start working for you, adding threat would just mean it works fully more often and reliably.

Well, not for me. You still have to shoot the enemy to start threat generation. As long as there is no threat cruiser around you'll most likely keep the aggro of things your are shooting without threat. But if APDelta generates threat and there is a cruiser around that is not able to catch aggro from escorts if needed, for me this is a problem. My argument here is mostly for ships with only 2 tac slots, some of them the most tanky ships like the Star Cruiser or Gal-R. Even with Attack Patterns on ensign level, there is only room for a tac team and FaW. Generating AoE threat without FaW is, well, not easy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ussultimatum

Maybe you wouldn't.

Maybe some would.

APD is available to any ship with at least a Lt Tactical slot.

Someone who has a Sci or Eng in an Escort who rarely generates a ton of threat and does not have threat control might want a power like APD to let them help an ally out of a rough spot.

Whether they are in a Sci ship, Escort, Cruiser or Carrier.

Maybe you are right. Again I'm not really against the proposal and will stay with my opinion of escort flying with additional threat will do this on their own responsibility.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ussultimatum

Honestly, I would like APD to stay as is with the threat generation component being say +500% and standard across all versions.

This would make your concern above a non-issue as a Cruiser would still have access to the highest available threat - just not the highest available Dam Debuff/Resistance Buff.

Indeed, this would solve a couple problems.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ussultimatum

Outside of some PvP builds why would an Escort really want any version of APD now anyway?

For PvE (the scope of this thread) APB is completely superior and taking APD 3 on an Escort for PvE right now, instead of APB 3, CRF 3 or APO 3 is just a mistake.

Well, the problem here is there are so many things that aren't shooting at you and thus render APDelta useless. I know, obvious and doesn't have to be said, but even with added threat I would only consider Delta as inferior since there are too many occasions where it is totally useless.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ussultimatum

This is just not true unfortunately.

I've even said what you've said, but the fact is there are times you simply can't pull threat due to a number of things: for example the escort got there first and opened up with all their buffs.

Outside of an activatable power, it's incredibly unlikely that an Eng/Cruiser will pull threat once they are already behind in threat generation on any specific enemy.

Hmmm, maybe we are building our cruisers in a different way, but as long as tacs do not have threat I usually catch up pretty easy in threat. Even if the escorts open fire first, which due to the lame ducks most cruisers are happens, aggro usually jumps to me after a couple seconds of shooting. Yes sometimes it requires some effort, with the really good escorts, but I yet have to see an example of complete "threat fail"

Quote:

Originally Posted by ussultimatum

Also keep in mind nothing stops an escort pilot from taking threat now and there are PvPers who in fact do this for the resist buffs because they can handle the increased threat.

Sure, that's why I said, if they can't take the heat it's their own fault and they deserve to die. It would be the same with threat generating APDelta.

Hmmm, maybe we are building our cruisers in a different way, but as long as tacs do not have threat I usually catch up pretty easy in threat.

It tends to depend on the situation.

Sometimes you can catch up (firing on the ISE gate at point blank range), sometimes the enemy dies before that happens and sometimes the allied Escort takes a borg torp at half health and is vaporized.

Basically APD would be a threat spike to help yank threat much faster.

None of the negative situations above are really game breaking, even a friendly dying is not a big deal with the way death "penalty" (I use the term lightly) - but there is still room in this game for an active threat mechanic
for space combat (IMO, anyway).

Full Disclosure: I'm something of a perfectionist, I really dislike when an allied ship dies while I'm tanking in something so rote as Elite STFs or Fleet Events - even if ultimately the impact is minimal on the final outcome.

Seriously though, this suggestion makes a ton of sense to me... as it plays into my belief that ships/careers have specific roles in missions... and by playing those roles, you help the team overall. The ability for a tank to "yank" agro to them, should they choose... makes perfect sense.

I particularly like the suggestion that if it is applied to another target, player getting the snot beat out of them, or freighter in NWS it would reduce their overall threat.

As I am just beginning to dabble in PVP, I don't think that threat control plays any role, or has any effect rather, in pvp (I could be wrong), so this would be a PVE only effect, while leaving those who use APD in PVP with what works today.

This suggestion gets +1 from me!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------Star Trek Online, Now with out the Trek....

Seriously though, this suggestion makes a ton of sense to me... as it plays into my belief that ships/careers have specific roles in missions... and by playing those roles, you help the team overall. The ability for a tank to "yank" agro to them, should they choose... makes perfect sense.

Yeah, and while I understand the "take all comers" style of a PUG queue system and that you can't be too specific in enforcing roles, the ship roles are already there and something like this would certainly help.

Quote:

Originally Posted by johnny111971

I particularly like the suggestion that if it is applied to another target, player getting the snot beat out of them, or freighter in NWS it would reduce their overall threat.

I'm not opposed to this, and I think it would be interesting.

Whether it would actually be necessary having now just brought a spike of +500% threat onto yourself is a different story.

One thing that bothers me though about this that someone stated earlier.

APD even moved to the ensign slot would be troublesome. The reason is because of the low tactical slots of cruisers in the first place. TT1 and FAW is only available to the SC and Galaxy for example. Would you give up either of those for an aggro buff?

Before anyone comes out and says "Just use a different ship with more tactical slots" one will need to remember, that not everybody plays the same way and many are very happy with the ships that they have.

[Unrepentant] Lapo@overlapo: the problem with space STF
is that you can't properly teabag your defeated opponent

Are you saying you run it currently? I haven't seen anyone mention APD as a skill they use on escort builds I've seen. (happy to be proven wrong though)

I use APD on my escort. It's good for dealing with mobs. I don't necessarily want threat generation added to it though; I have no points in threat control but I still generate more threat than my team in most cases. Any more and I doubt I'd survive long enough for the ability to be of any use.

One thing that bothers me though about this that someone stated earlier.

APD even moved to the ensign slot would be troublesome. The reason is because of the low tactical slots of cruisers in the first place. TT1 and FAW is only available to the SC and Galaxy for example. Would you give up either of those for an aggro buff?

The SC and Galaxy are better set up as healers, than tanks, in my opinion (the SC has some better options).

Even if APD wasn't moved to Ensign, they'd still need to give up one of those - but they'd need to give up a Lt power instead of an Ensign Power.

Quote:

Originally Posted by daiouvegeta2

Before anyone comes out and says "Just use a different ship with more tactical slots" one will need to remember, that not everybody plays the same way and many are very happy with the ships that they have.

If they're happy now, and don't want or use APD now then what would change for them?

They could keep on playing as they are now, and ignore APD just like they probably do now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by velktra

I use APD on my escort. It's good for dealing with mobs. I don't necessarily want threat generation added to it though; I have no points in threat control but I still generate more threat than my team in most cases. Any more and I doubt I'd survive long enough for the ability to be of any use.

Outside of PvP, which this change would not affect, there are really very very few reasons to ever use APD instead of APB on an Escort (or any ship, for that matter).

APD grants some resistance, but its also on a longer cooldown (45s) and if there are no enemies firing on you then there are no debuffs applied to your targets.

Unlike APB (30s cooldown), which gets applied to the target just by firing at them.

So to recap:

1) Resistance with no one shooting you is wasted.
2) A debuff that is only applied when a target is shooting you is wasted when no one is shooting you.
3) If you want mitigation, you're probably better off with Attack Pattern Omega which grants damage, speed, turn, immunity to movement debuffs, immunity to disable debuffs, +defense and +resistance. It's also on a 45s cooldown.

APD grants some resistance, but its also on a longer cooldown (45s) and if there are no enemies firing on you then there are no debuffs applied to your targets.

Unlike APB (30s cooldown), which gets applied to the target just by firing at them.

So to recap:

1) Resistance with no one shooting you is wasted.
2) A debuff that is only applied when a target is shooting you is wasted when no one is shooting you.
3) If you want mitigation, you're probably better off with Attack Pattern Omega which grants damage, speed, turn, immunity to movement debuffs, immunity to disable debuffs, +defense and +resistance. It's also on a 45s cooldown.

I never said I don't run APB.

I have APA, APB, ABD, and APO. I'm not sure how I managed all four, but I have them, and I use all of them even in PvE. APD gets used after I've drawn a group's aggro (or in PvP when the other team goes "GET THE ESCORT" and jumps me lol). The others get used whenever I need them, and I do use APB and APO more often that APD. But each of them have their place.

I too use all four attack patterns on my fleet patrol escort. Attack Pattern Beta II for debuffing and Attack Pattern Omega III for damage/escaping tractor beams. While I don't use Attack Pattern Delta I as often as I use APB or APO, the ability has several important uses. To list a few

In Infected Space Elite I will toss APD I on players that have the aggro from the tactical cube/gate/sphere mobs.

In Cure Space Elite APD I is invaluable when thrown onto the IKS Kang and combined with Tactical Team I and Transfer Shield Strength II. It can be the difference between winning or losing the optional when he is taking fire from the battle cruisers/raptors at the end of the mission. (If they managed to make it that far)

In many of the new fleet missions, APD I again very useful when combined with TT I. Not only does it provide a damage resist to the freighter, it also adds the blue FX to the enemy ships with the debuffs. Thus, the team is able to prioritize targets currently threatening the freighter.

The same is true in No Win Scenario. Tactical Team I with Attack Pattern Delta I works in the same manner as with Freighters in the Starbase defense missions.

Now, imagine for a second you add a 500% Threat Generation to any one of the above listed targets. For example, throwing an ability that increases the IKS Kang's threat by 500%. Any borg ship engaged with a player in a 15-20Km radius would turn to attack the Kang. If you want a truly dramatic example of the threat generation ability, play KA ground elite as a tactical captain and throw draw fire in the generator room. Every last drone within a 55m-70m radius will converge on your location. Adding threat generation would destroy all of the current player builds dependent on the ability being a simple damage resistance buff/enemy debuff. Perhaps another attack pattern could be made with an increased threat/damage resist. Adding a threat reduction to APD I fully agree with, it would be on track with the current purpose of the ability.